1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image communication apparatus, method and system, and more particularly to techniques of wireless (radio) transmission of digital image information picked up and stored by an electronic apparatus having an image pickup unit, to another recording device which records the received digital image information.
2. Related Background Art
An image pickup device (such as an electronic still image camera) for picking up still images has generally a recording medium having a small capacity. For example, the recording medium is a semiconductor memory such as an SRAM and a flash memory or a magnetic recording medium such as a floppy disk. An image pickup device (such as a camera integrated VTR) for picking up moving images stores the images in a recording medium such as a magnetic tape. Image data picked up and stored by such an image pickup device can be reproduced by utilizing an image reproduction function of the image pickup device itself.
In order to edit, modify and print image data, it is necessary to store the image data picked up by the image pickup device in a recording device (such as a storage unit) having a recording medium of a large capacity and to thereafter process the stored image data by using a personal computer or the like.
In such a case, a user is required to connect the image pickup device and recording device with a cable or infrared transceivers.
If a cable is used for such connection, the distance between the image pickup device and recording device is limited by the length of the cable. If the cable is short, the image pickup device and recording device are required to be set near to each other. If infrared transceivers or the like are used for such connection, an occurrence frequency of transmission errors may become high depending upon the communication state of a transmission path, and reliable data communication may become impossible.
In order to transfer image data picked up by the image pickup device to the recording device, a user is required to manually perform all operations from selection of image data to transfer thereof. The user operations therefore become complicated.
It is also necessary for the user to manually perform all operations including deletion of image data on the side of the image pickup device, after the data picked up by the image pickup device is stored in the recording device. The user operations therefore become complicated.